Amit (1.5), playing on the top board with a seeding of 33, overcame both his handicaps of being blind and of a low seeding when he forced Ketan (1.5) for a draw after 29 moves in the second round of the Central Maharashtra selection chess tournament at the Nehru Stadium on Thursday night. Amit, the 12th standard Arts student of Fergusson College, playing with white pieces, employed an advance variation after the regular King pawn opening to which Ketan (Elo 2180) answered with the French defence.

Ketan soon got an advantage of being a piece up in the 10th move. However, the middle game saw some quick moves wherein both players exchanged heavy materials and were on equal terms. Amit offered a draw here but Ketan refused it. Amit, in the end game, had two good chances to checkmate Ketan on the Kf8 and Qg7, but this was overlooked by both the players. The position, which could have tilted the game otherwise, was later pointed out by Pranav Akolkar, an upcoming player, to both the players. Meanwhile, 26 players are sharing the top spot with two points, followed by Amit and Ketan with 1.5 points.

Results (II R): Amit Durge (1.5) drew with Ketan Khaire (1.5); Udayan Bapat (2) bt Pratap Phadke (1); Mandar Sane (1) lost to Pranav Akolkar (2); Utpal Sasane (1) bt Aniruddha Deshpande (1); Sohan Phadke (1) lost to Abhijit Joshi (2); Rajesh Sapkal (2) bt Mohit Shah (1); Pramod Shinde (1) bt Snehal Mahajan (2); Ashwani Kulkarni (2) bt Hrishikesh Purohit (1); Dhananjay Kaduskar (1) lost to Sunil Barve (2); Ashish Dhamdhere (2) bt Prashant Gambhir (1); Samir Joshi (1) lost to Amogh Sarpotdar (2); Sandeep Gohad (2) bt Rajeev Venkatraman (1); Vijay Bansode (1) lost to Vilas Moghe (2); Ravi Phadke (2) bt Chaitanya Deosale (1); Sachin Salve (2) bt Eesha Karavade (1); Umesh Patil (1) lost to Soumitra Mujumdar (2); Vinayak Nimse (1) lost to Machindra Pate (2); Satish Chauhan (2) bt Ashok Sasne (1); R B Prabhu (1) lost to S S Shahane (2); Ajay Joshi (2) bt Abhijit Pradhan (1); Kalidas Sherle (1) lost to Rucha Karavade (2); Krutika Nadig (1) lost to Sachin Jagtap (2); Mihir Naniwadekar (2) bt Neelesh Konde (1);Prasad Telang (1) lost to Chaitnya Shivade (2); Devangi Patankar (1) lost to Shriyas Dikshit (2); Yogesh Nandkumar (2) bt Omkar Saykhedkar (1); Rahul Patekar (1) lost to Prasanna Borse (2); Kiran Panditrao (1) bt Aditi Deshpande (.5); Anand Kulkarni (.5) lost to Suhas Bodhani (1); C J Tikekar (1) bt Neelish Gandhi (0); Akshayraj Kore (1) W/O Sayeed Dawood (0); Prasad Kulkarni (1) bt Anusha Nandkumar (0); Anil Gajangi (0) lost to Sandeep Chavan (1); V L Pawar (1) W/O Kashinath Gurav (0); Prashant Gujar W/O Yogesh Rananavare (1); Rohan Joshi (1) bt Tejas Konde Deshmukh (0); Mahesh Gadekar (.5) drew with Nanda Ghanshyam (.5); Kishor Mane (0) lost to Atul Bapat (1); S R Joshi (1) bt L K Pisal (0); Sunit Nitsure (1) bt Lalit Rajopadhye (0); Neelish Joshi (1) bt Mayuresh Rao (0); S Naniwadekar (1) bt Dhananjay Kakade (0); Suhas Date (1) bt Sagar Mesram (0); K Chawthany (0) lost to V S Shinde (1); Deepak Pitambare (.5) drew with Salil Nitsure (.5); Rajesh Oza (0) lost to V V Khatavkar (1); Hajju Awate (1) btRajendra Mane (0); V S Kale (1) W/O Prashant Arge (0); Raju Deshmukh (1) bt Kaviraj Korde (0); Shruti Ratnakar (1) bt Naval Toshinaval (0); Suhas Samart (1) W/O Subhash Bhandge (0); Y M Sethi (1) W/O Siddnath Dhukate (0); Vivek Bedekar (1) bt Y S Orpe (0); Yuvraj Korde (1) bt Vijay Paturkar (0); Vinod Adhate (1) bt Subhash Chaudhary (0).